• US forces hunting al Qaeda suspects hit four locations in new air strikes in Somalia, a Somali government source said, as criticism mounted over Washington's military intervention. "As we speak now, the area is being bombarded by the American air force," the source said.

• Twenty-nine suspected dangerous dogs were seized in Liverpool yesterday and seven people arrested following the death last week of a five-year-old girl who was killed by a banned breed of dog. About 60 police offices, including dog handlers and nearly 30 RSPCA officers were involved in the raids, which are part of a crackdown in Liverpool on the keeping of banned breeds.

• Streets were quiet in a Baghdad district where US and Iraqi forces killed 50 people in a major battle as President George W. Bush prepared to unveil a plan to send more troops to turn the war around. Iraqi troops sealed off some areas in Haifa Street, a Sunni Arab stronghold, but fighting from a major US and Iraqi operation to rid the area of terrorist hideouts had ended, an official at the Iraqi Army media office said.

• Re-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will be sworn in for a new term ending in 2013 while promising a radical socialist revolution and nationalizations that have dragged down financial markets. Emboldened by his landslide victory last month, the anti-US leader has brazenly courted controversy, refusing to renew the license of an opposition television channel and vowing to take over major companies, including some owned by foreign investors.

• Gunmen armed with dynamite invaded an oil services base in Bayelsa state in Nigeria's southern oil-producing Niger Delta and kidnapped nine South Korean workers and one Nigerian. The gunmen came in six boats to the riverside base in the outskirts of Bayelsa state capital Yenagoa. They blew up part of an office building and the ground was littered with pieces of zinc roofing, electrical fittings and air conditioning units.

• Bird flu has infected a farmer in China's first human case in months, killed an Indonesian teenager and spread deeper in Vietnam in a flare-up of infections mirroring past winters. A second Indonesian bird flu victim, a 37-year-old woman from Banten Province on Java island, was in hospital, the World Health Organisation said.